Painted Finches and Black-shouldered Kite at Ellery Creek Big Hole

The family decided to head out the back of Ellery Creek Big Hole for a bit of a last fling at adventure before the kids head back to school. The way in seemed to take forever for the kids and finally we arrived, set up a table and chairs and had some lunch before trekking down the river to the swimming hole at Ellery Creek. The nicest surprise was the Painted finches. I have only seen them in groups of 10 or less before today but there must have been close to 50, all making a racket on the slopes of the gorge and then finally coming down to drink. I took a lot of photos, here is a selection:

Painted Finches

and a Zebra Finch joined in!

We also saw a young Black-shouldered Kite near where we parked the car on the other side of Ellery Creek

Black-shouldered Kite